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Monfils beats Haas in epic quarter-final

Alastair Bull

Gael Monfils has made it through to the semi-finals of the Auckland Open after an epic 3-6 7-5 6-3 a quarter-final victory over Tommy Haas.

Monfils was the very definition of a wildcard, producing moments of brilliance, when he appeared to give up, and bizarre shots.

But when he was on his game it was too much for the third seeded Haas, who lost after a match which hit two hours.

Haas was in control in the first set after a fourth game break. By the time Haas was serving for the set, Monfils was resorting to million dollar Hail Mary-type shots, to no avail.

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The German looked in control early in the second set and it was a surprise to see Monfils break serve in the fourth game, and by the fifth game he had the crowd on his side after Haas complained about a warning given to him by the umpire.

There was the usual moments of Monfils madness - at one point after skying a backhand return he chose to bend over and tie his shoes than get in position to try to return the inevitable Haas overhead smash.

Haas lost his break late in the set but proceeded to break Haas again to win the second set.

The third set went with serve until Monfils, who came back from 0-40 the previous game, broke Haas to lead 5-3, and then served out to take the match.

Monfils will play top seed David Ferrer in Friday's semi-final after the world number five easily dispatched Lukas Lacko of Slovakia 6-2 6-1.

The defending champion was much more impressive than in his Wednesday match against Yen-Hsun Lu, whom he needed three sets to overcome.

"Yesterday was a surprise with the court being so fast, but today I knew that the court was faster and I tried to improve my game and to adapt."

The other semi-final will be between second seed Philipp Kohlschreiber and fourth seed Sam Querrey after they both won their quarter-finals in straight sets.

Kohlschreiber didn't have much to spare in his 7-6 6-4 quarter-final win against Xavier Malisse of Belgium, who was also in good touch.

The big-serving American Querrey was again in good form, beating Jesse Levine of Canada 6-4 7-6.